This paper analyzes the mechanism underlying access to credit, focusing on two important aspects of rural credit markets. First, moneylenders and other informal lenders coexist with formal lending institutions such as government or commercial banks, and, more recently, micro-lending...

The majority of economic decisions are forward-looking and thus involve expectations of future outcomes. Understanding the expectations that individuals have is thus of crucial importance to designing and evaluating policies in health, education, finance, migration, social protection, and many...

This paper investigates the accuracy of recall data by comparing administrative records with retrospective, self-reported survey responses to income and asset questions for a sample of self-employed households from coastal India. It finds that the magnitude of the recall error increases over...

Group liability in microcredit purports to improve repayment rates through peer screening, monitoring, and enforcement. However, it may create excessive pressure, and discourage reliable clients from borrowing. Two randomized trials tested the overall effect, as well as specific mechanisms. The...

Return on assets (ROA) of household enterprise is crucial for understanding the productivity of households in developing economies. Yet the definition and measurement of household enterprise ROA remain inconsistent or unclear. We illustrate potential measurement problems with examples from...